1980 was a busy year for the City of Rotorua. It was the year that the city chose to celebrate its founding on 25 November 1880. The year-long centennial celebration kicked off in style in November 1979 when the Morrison Quartet briefly reunited for a special concert at the Rotorua…

Amongst the air conditioning vents, turrets and tiles on the southern rooftop of Rotorua Museum is a very unusual item for such a space. In mid December 2013, after a short helicopter flight, a hackbox destined to become home to three very cute kārearea chicks was delivered to the roof…

In 2003 Rotorua Museum opened their exhibition called Big Red – celebrating the pōhutukawa. It marked 11 years of Project Crimson, a community-based project to save the endangered tree. Back then the main dangers for the pōhutukawa were possums and humans. Today Project Crimson is 27 years old, and there…

The Tarawera eruption On 10 June 1886 at about 2am an eruption of great magnitude occurred in the Rotorua region. It was Mount Tarawera, just 24km from the town. The eruption lasted 6 hours and consisted of lightning, earthquakes and molten rocks which were thrown into the air along with…